This Blog will discuss various anecdotal topics about the Post "Peak Everything" world from my daily life in which I am clearly "Holier Than Thou". Note that even the holierthanthou blog name peaked before this blog started...

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

5 comments:

Couldn't agree more. I wonder how Caltrain will like it if I send them a bill for a taxi or hotel when I need to work past 6pm.

I'm actually reading right now about folding bikes since I know bumping will be out of control with this schedule. Look at the 138 after they canceled the 9:37 SB train.

I actually choose to not have a car, but I don't know what they expect Stanford students (I remember my ramen days) or high school students heading home from practice, who can't legally drive do. Don't mind the $45.6M project to add one SB lane for 2.5 miles to 101 in Santa Clara County. Ugh...

Presently the first BB leaves 4th @ 6:59 am. There's a single limited before this, @ 6:11 am. I usually take that limited (not today, I overslept). On this schedule, there's already 5 near-BB's which left before that 6:59 presently leaves. So the schedule is tilted too early. Switch the early trains to every 30 minutes, shift those to the dead zones to avoid the fall-off-the-cliff syndrome @ 9 am and 7 am, and it's far from useless, in fact an improvement for my personal commute from SF to MV.

Maybe it's time to get a locker in Mountain View....

The emphasis is definitely on speed over EFS (every station), which I absolutely support. The density of stations is too high given Caltrain's role of medium-distance hauler. If the "last mile" becomes the "last two miles" that's a small price to pay for cutting 10 minutes off a route. I can run faster than that.

Interestingly, the Sunnyvale station would get much better service. On the other hand, Intel/Yahoo/McAffee/Mission College/etc employees would be 5 miles away instead of 3 miles today. I wonder if they considered the increased cost in time and otherwise for the shuttles.

It's hard to see the system as a whole -- too easy to focus on our own individual patterns -- so I appreciate the other comments.

For my wife's commute, 22nd St. to Palo Alto, there is currently one bullet and one limited every hour at peak times. Under this draft there will be four limiteds and no bullets every hour.

A 20% reduction in speed -- 32 minutes to 38 minutes -- hurts. My wife says she'll appreciate the added flexibility of having more trains every hours, but I think a lot of people are going to miss having that bullet.

What I really want to know is: Is this a way of thinking athat will lead to a better Caltrain two or five years from now? By giving up on the baby bullet now are we locking into a schedule philosophy that will make it harder to restore bullet service later on when the budget picture improves? It's easy to see how they expand on this schedule in good years by adding 48 train coverage more hours of the day. But it's hard to see how they squeeze bullet-fast times back in here.